Box Office Battle Becomes Kind Of Embarrassing

Experts were right and wrong about Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Mufasa: The Lion King.

Ahead of release, projections had pegged Sonic at $60 million domestic and Mufasa at $50M. Sure enough, the Blue Blur came in with a solid $62M. But Mufasa? The prequel drew only $35M.

There are issues with both numbers.

Why Sonic 3’s Weekend Box Office Is Slightly Frustrating

The Thursday previews for Sonic 3 were $6.5 million, which was the highest of the trilogy. It beat Sonic 2 by only $250K but was still ahead. That had raised expectations that maybe the threequel would become the franchise’s box office king.

But each day brought in a little less and a little less. Let’s review the totals for all three films in the franchise (in chronological order).

• Friday total (with previews): $20.9M, $26.3M, $25.7M,
• Saturday: $20.5M, $26.8M, $19.5M
• Sunday: $16.5, $18.8, $16.7M
• Total: $58M, $72.1M, $62M

Deadline had some notes:

Per Paramount, families repped 46% of their crowd through two days which is why business was lighter on Saturday…. By comparison,
Sonic the Hedgehog 2
opened on April 8, 2022 and brought in 59% families. Confidence prevails in business from Christmas Day onward.

As exciting as opening weekend numbers are, total box office is what ultimately matters. You have to imagine families that would typically see a film opening weekend have end of year obligations or travel that might have interfered in theater-going. It’s still possible for Sonic 3 to win the race against its peers. (And for Sonic 4 to take the crown in 2027).

Why Mufasa’s Weekend Box Office Is Frustrating

Oh man. The domestic opening weekend for 2019’s The Lion King live-action remake was $191.1 million. That bears repeating: $191.1 million.

The silver lining seems to be “it could have been worse.” But not by much. It’s an 82% drop.

Let’s take a look at the day-by-day comparison:

• Friday total (with previews): $77.9M, $13.3M
• Saturday: $61M, $11.8M
• Sunday: $52.8M, $9.9M

There’s just nothing positive about this number. Granted, we do have the rest of the holiday season. Maybe word of mouth is strong and drives families to the theater throughout the holidays and into the new year?

Unfortunately, the global total also stalled. Let’s play a game. Do you think the global box office drop is lower, equal or higher than the domestic one of 82%?

Mufasa’s global weekend was $87 million. Which feels a lot better than the domestic number of $35M. But how does it compare to The Lion King? The predecessor raked in $269 million. Again, just in the opening weekend.

It’s a 68% drop, so slightly better than the domestic fall.

Disney will probably go back to the drawing board and try to figure out how they fumbled one of their biggest properties so badly.